Bust A Move

I was attempting to concentrate on my homework on Saturday night while roommates and company were watching "The American President". Sad to say, I wasn't being very successful - only every now and again was I able to tune the movie out and, for a few moments, focus on translating the words of Cicero and Virgil. During one of these rare moments, my concentration was broken by the sound of The Killers' "Somebody Told Me" coming from somewhere near... "Oh! That's my mobile!" I /love/ getting calls, perhaps as much as Audrey does - whom we usually let answer the phone for fear of getting trampled as she races to the be first to pick up. I didn't figure that Audrey would be so eager to answer my mobile, though, so I hopped off the couch and ran out of the room to see who was ringing me. The caller was an old roommate of mine, Jen, to say that she and Angie (another previous roommate) were just chilling - and would Julie and I like to come round? I motioned Julie into the other room so as not to disturb the movie-watchers, and asked whether she was okay with visiting Jen and Angie. The look on her face said: "What a stupid question!"

When Jen, Angie, Julie, and I lived together, before the summer came around and we went our separate ways, the four of us danced all the time. No matter what we were all doing, it only took one person to turn on a good song - within about 30 seconds all of us would be out in the living room, busting moves and demonstrating our soul. We bonded during synchronized routines to songs such as "Bootylicious" and "Ice, Ice, Baby". When Jen called tonight she mentioned the fact that we could dance, just like old times, and asked if I still remembered the routines. Let's be honest, how could I not? I had, after all, practiced them over the summer - when I missed the girls particularly or needed something to remember home by.

Julie and I hopped on her scooter and, routines in our heads and music in hand, headed for Jen's apartment. The reunion was typical - screaming and laughing and cries of "Oh my gosh, you look so cute!" and "I missed you, it's so good to see you again!" and "So, talk to me...how's life?" We had indeed missed each other.

The four of us, plus a friend of Jen’s, headed into downtown Provo to check out a band that was playing on Center Street. We didn’t stay long, though; there was a strong smell of alcohol and weed that was making me sick to my stomach, and the music (although pretty good) wasn’t really conducive to dancing. While we were standing around, trying to decide if we wanted to leave or stick around for a bit, we were approached by an elderly Native American who was decidedly very drunk. He solicited poor Julie for a dance – she looked rather terrified at the thought and unsure what to do. Jen and I both stepped in and said “I’m sorry, but Julie is mine and I don’t lend her out.” At first that seemed to work, but after a few seconds he turned to Angie instead and made the same drunken offer. Angie flat-out refused, and the man resorted to yelling obscenities and stumbling off into the crowd. We saw our opportunity and made our escape before he could come back. Exit, stage left.

We laughed the whole way back to Jen’s apartment as we recounted past situations that had been similar. Some of them had occurred last year when we lived together and went to many of the same parties (Angie – remember James?), and others had taken place over the summer. It’s always a bit of a shock when that type of thing happens in Provo; you don’t run into people like that very often around here.

Returning to Jen’s apartment, we kicked off our shoes and turned on the music. The first song we played was “Ice, Ice, Baby” – complete with appropriate dance routine of course. The memories came flooding back, and it didn’t take us long to ‘find our groove’…just like old times. We showed off our new moves from over the summer, and recalled our favourite classics. 1, 2, step, shake booty here. Oh, yeah. The four of us busted moves to such artists as Usher, Missy Elliot, Akon, and Ciara. We drank lots of water to keep ourselves from hyperventilating. We talked, shared stories, and laughed till it hurt – no doubt, having that much fun should be illegal.